Five years ago, Tim DeChristopher was an economics student at the University of Utah on the cusp of a life-altering decision.

In 2008, DeChristopher committed an act of civil disobedience in the name of climate justice that turned him from a college student to an incarcerated felon. His story is told in “Bidder 70,” a film created by Beth Gage and her husband, George, that will be presented at Mountainfilm on Tour Savannah.

“We read about what Tim DeChristopher had done,” Gage says. “I thought it was kind of ingenious and it piqued my curiosity.

“We met him shortly thereafter and talked to Tim about following him for a short film,” she says. “Things just kept evolving until it turned into a long film.”

A climate activist and co-founder of the environmental group Peaceful Uprising, DeChristopher protested an oil and gas lease auction of 116 parcels of public land in Utah’s redrock country that was conducted by the Bureau of Land Management. He decided to participate in the auction, and signed a Bidder Registration Form and placed bids to obtain 14 parcels of land totaling 22,500 acres for $1.8 million.

Federal agents removed DeChristopher from the auction, took him into custody and questioned him. He was indicted April 1, 2009, in a two-count felony indictment for violation of the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act and making false statements, and on July 26, 2011, he was sentenced to two years in prison.

Today, DeChristopher is in a halfway house, pending his April 21 release.

In addition to filmmaking, Gage is chair of the Mountainfilm in Telluride board, the parent organization of the film festival that takes the films on tour. She and her husband will be in Savannah this weekend to screen their film and answer questions.

“Everybody so far has thought he is so brave and he’s willing to take the consequences,” Gage says. “Climate change is upon us and people have to take notice. He’s been a good advocate.”

Although incarcerated, DeChristopher has seen the film.

“Now that he’s in a halfway house, he stays in a low, minimum security prison at night, but goes out during the day to work,” Gage says.

“He also gets time off on weekends to go to church. We were able to give him a copy of the film then.

“He’s changed and grown a lot since we filmed,” she says. “We stopped filming the day he was sentenced, going on two years now.”

Despite his experience, DeChristopher remains firm in his beliefs, and says similar actions should be used to stop mountaintop removal for mining in his home state of West Virginia. “He’s very strong,” Gage says. “He believes if you care about humanity, you have to do something.”

The Gages moved to Telluride, Colo., home of Mountainfilm, in 1988. “We were in California before we moved,” Cage says.

“My husband and I had done commercials and a couple of feature films. After I saw Mountainfilm, I decided that was the kind of film I wanted to be involved in.

“We started working on documentary films that maybe could make a difference, inspire or educate or entertain people in 1989,” she says. “In 1995, one of our documentaries premiered at Mountainfilm, and we’ve had seven in all shown in Mountainfilm.”

Henry Lystad is the director of Mountainfilm on Tour. “I owned a few businesses in Telluride that revolved around the tourism industry, and became involved as a sponsor in 1996,” he explains.

“Fast forward to 2011 when the Director of World Tour position became available, I called my good friend and executive director Peter Kenworthy to discuss what the job entailed,” Lystad says. “I wasn’t really looking for work, but over the next month or so, we spent enough time brainstorming on how to make the tour more viable, that he offered me the job and I gladly accepted.”

The festival started a touring arm as part of its mission. “Not everyone can make it to ‘the Mothership’ in May, so we thought we’d offer to bring the festival to you,” Lystad says.

“The films for our tour are chosen by a small committee of three, all staffers,” he says. “The films that we play at each city are chosen in a collaborative way between the local, hosting committee and our programming and touring departments.”

Savannah is getting “an incredible slate” of films, Lystad says.

“The cool thing about Mountainfilm is that you cannot ever typecast us into a certain film genre,” he says.

“Our shows will evolve several times in a three-hour period, from introspective, environmentally focused, educational films, to adrenaline sports, back to cultural pieces, followed up by a film that might be about an incredibly quirky, important personality that you will never forget.

“You just never know what you will see at a Mountainfilm event, but you will always leave the show inspired, educated and feeling better about getting involved.”

Zelda Tenenbaum chairs the local Mountainfilm planning team.

“This year, we’re having a school session, a field day for students in public schools to come and be inspired and educated about what’s going on in the world,” she says.

“We wanted to add this because it’s hard on weekends to get the children here,” Tenenbaum says. “Gulfstream is paying for buses so the kids can get to the theater.”

On hand will be speedskater Joey Cheek, an Olympic gold medalist, who will talk about “Right to Play,” a film by Hollywood producer Frank Marshall. Cheek is co-founder and president of Team Darfur, an international coalition of athletes committed to raising awareness about and bringing an end to the crisis in Darfur, Sudan.

Cheek, who was inducted into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame because of his work with Team Darfur, donated his $25,000 gold medal bonus and an additional $15,000 prize bonus for the 1,000-meter race to Right to Play, an athlete-driven international humanitarian organization formed by former Olympic champion Johann Olav Koss of Norway.

Cheek challenged others to make similar pledges to the organization. Since his donation, more than $390,000 has been contributed to this cause.

A question and answer session following Friday night’s films will feature Cheek, as well as Kate Greenberg, director of development from Right to Play’s New York City headquarters.

“This group of Olympians has turned toward service,” Tenenbaum says. “They go in with soccer balls to teach kids to play. They go to the most impoverished areas of Africa.”

Mountainfilm addresses issues similar to those faced in the Southeast, Tenenbaum says, including the current state of the Ogeechee River.

“Some of these films are a little controversial to bring here and I’m happy to do so,” she says.

“We will see people who say, ‘I’m going to talk until I’m blue in the face and fight until I’m heard,’” Tenenbaum says. “Tim DeChristopher was an economics student, not a rebel. There are many such stories.

“‘Trust’ is about a group of students who ask the government to take care of the planet,” she says. “It’s a different type of movement that’s happening with young people who’ve inherited the mess we’ve made.”

This is the fourth year Mountainfilm on Tour Savannah has been presented.

“It’s an amazing and inspiring festival,” Tenenbaum says. “We don’t want to change the inspiring part, but we do want to bring something different every year.”

“The Nomad”: Extreme adventurer Erik Boomer is the star of this short film by Forge Motion Pictures. Traveling by foot, skis and kayak, Boomer moves through the world and his life in a way few others do.

“Moonwalk”: Dean Potter is nothing if not creative. In this short piece, he highlines across a desert landscape with a massive full moon as his backdrop.

“Industrial Revolutions”: There seems to be no end to what Danny MacAskill can do on a trials bike, whether it be on the streets of Dunvegan, Scotland, or in an abandoned industrial train yard.

“The Way Home”: “You shouldn’t have to convince people to go to paradise,” says Yosemite National Park Ranger Shelton Johnson. As an African American, he is unsettled by the fact that only 1 percent of those who visit Yosemite share his race.

“Right to Play”: Were his Olympic speed-skating gold medals in 1994 his only legacy, Norwegian Johann Olav Koss might have just become another athlete living off dusty accomplishments. Instead, Koss used the same singular determination and focus that took him to the top of his sport to make a difference in the lives of some of the planet’s most vulnerable and victimized children. A Q&A session following the films will feature two special guests from the athlete-driven international humanitarian organization Right to Play: Kate Greenburg, RTP ambassador from NYC headquarters, and Joey Cheek, Olympic gold and bronze medalist speed skater and co-founder/president of Team Darfur, an international coalition of athletes committed to raising awareness about the crisis in Sudan.

“Racing the End”: Bike racing in Los Angeles, Calif.? No way. There are too many cars. Or are there?

JAN. 19

9:30 a.m. The Sentient Bean, 13 E. Park Ave.

Panel: Kate Greenburg, Right to Play ambassador; Joey Cheek, Olympic medalist; and Beth and George Gage, filmmakers of Bidder 70 and other award-winning documentaries, gather for coffee and conversation.

11 a.m. South end of Forsyth Park.

A community bike ride organized by the Savannah Bicycle Campaign will start and end at the south end of the park. All riders welcome.

“Eco Ninja”: From the maker of the award-winning short film The Job (Mountainfilm 2007) comes this satirical brief comedy about a corporation that enforces a go-green policy in its offices by hiring an Eco Ninja who takes his duties all too seriously.

“The Man Who Lived on His Bike”: What can you do on a bicycle? For Guillaume Blanchet, the question is what can’t you do? In this two-minute homage to bikes and the bike obsessed, Blanchet eats, sleeps, showers, shaves, works, cooks and even dates — all from atop his man-powered machine.

“The Freedom Chair”: Josh Dueck was a passionate free-skier who found himself coaching world-class athletes, such as TJ Schiller and Justin Dorey, at a young age. But one day, he misjudged his speed as he approached a jump, and what could have been a harmless mistake, brought inextricable, life-altering consequences.

“Bidder 70”: Activist Tim DeChristopher, the subject of this film, cannot attend the screening in person because he’s serving two years in prison for an act of civil disobedience in which he disrupted an oil and gas land auction. A Q&A session will follow the films, featuring Beth and George Gage of Gage and Gage Productions, filmmakers of “Bidder 70” and other award-winning documentaries.

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Using the word "educate" implies to the common man that the information is scientifically, morally, or spiritually factual. Perhaps the writer should have chosen "indoctrinate". The basis of the "climate justice" agenda is to transform the American and European economy into a 'low carbon consumption' economy. This is unfortunately a fallacy for we cannot feed the world without an industrialized model, nor can we ship the food, nor can we create the medicines, nor can we invent. Should the Ogeechee be clean? Absolutely. But to turn off the lights, recycle your car, and just marvel at God's creation would cause more global harm than good. We all have a responsibility to be good stewards of the Earth, and to our fellow man, but there is a balance necessary in thought and action.

Looking at the subjects, I think we might have a return of the hippies. Sounds like a bunch of tree-huggers and peace and love adivcates that want to preach that we should all just play togeather and love and do nothing but live off the backs of the workers. The second time I came back from Viet Nam their kind had taken over the country and started the decline we are seeing now.